Hands Unclean
by HlysComment
Summary: Nathan finds himself face to face with the consequences of his actions. The question is not, Can Peter save him? It is, Does Peter still want to?
1. Chapter 1

Spoilers for up to A Clear and Present Danger

Disclaimer: I don't own Heroes. This isn't for profit. Let's all be nice.

My View on Reviews: The more the merrier. Please let me know what you think and, especially how you think a story can be improved. Thanks!

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"From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean." -- William Shakespeare

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Nathan awoke to an aching. He started to lift his head and winced at the pain in his neck. His hands and feet were tingling painfully and when he tried to lift them to his neck, nothing happened. He blinked dazedly. Slowly, the world around him came into focus. He was bound to a chair in the center of an almost completely bare room. The room looked like the living room to a house, Nathan could see what looked like a front door, but the walls were dingy. The air around him smelled of mold and age.

Where was he?

He heard footsteps approaching and tugged helplessly on the ropes. Who would it be? Peter? Mohinder? Not Sylar…

A young woman turned the corner and came into view.

"Hello, Mr. Petrelli." She said in a dry and pleasant voice. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up."

She strolled casually past a small table set against the wall. From what Nathan could see it was the only furniture in the room, always excepting the chair to which he was tied. As she drew closer, Nathan re-evaluated his earlier assumption about her age. She was young, younger than Claire even. Maybe as young as 13 but certainly no older than 18.

Nathan cleared his throat and tried for bravado. "Alright, young lady, who are you?"

The girls eyes swam in sudden tears but she laughed loudly.

"Who am I? That's the million dollar question, Mr. Petrelli." She paused and looked away for a moment. "You know, we needn't be so formal. Do we Nathan?" She began walking around his chair in a slow stroll.

"Have you ever seen that game show? Let's Make A Deal?" She continued. "I haven't but it's just one of those things, isn't it? Everyone seems to know there was this show called Let's Make A Deal and you picked doors or something. "

Nathan tried to follow her and was surprised at how disconcerting it was to have her speaking from behind him. It made the vulnerability of his immobility somehow more pronounced.

"Well, you and I are going to play my version of Let's Make A Deal, Nathan." She said and as she walked back into his view he saw she was carrying a small hand gun.

"Here's the deal, Mr…" She chuckled. "I mean, Nathan. You tell me who I am and I'll let you go. Hell, I'll even drive you into town."

The girls face, which to this point had been composed into an nonchalant, almost pleasant expression seemed to instantly harden and darken, as if it were suddenly transmuted into black diamond.

"If you can tell me who I am and what you did to me, all will be forgotten."

Disconcertingly, the dark mask was banished again and she seemed to be smiling brightly.

She reached over and patted his cheek almost warmly, "Deal?"

She skipped across the room and sat on the table letting her legs dangle back and forth below her.

"So, Mr. Big Shot Senator. What's my name?"

Nathan started to open his mouth and inadvertently yelped as the floor board next to his right foot exploded in a shower of splinters.

When the ringing cleared his ears Nathan could hear her laughing. Great guffaws of mirth bubbling up and spilling over in torrents.

"You…you…you should have seen your FACE!" She cried through the laughter.

"You're insane!" Nathan yelled.

The girl wiped tears from her eyes and suddenly she wasn't laughing anymore but crying. "MmmHmm. Yep. I think so. It's to be expected but that's cheating Mr. Senator! That's asking for clues! No more clues!"

She jumped down from the table and brought the still burning muzzle of the gun so close to his face the heat was uncomfortable.

"What's my name?" She said darkly. "What have you done?"

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To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 2

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"From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean." -- William Shakespeare

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"You're one of them." Nathan said at last.

"Eeeeeh!" The girl shrieked like a buzzer in a game show, then giggled. "You know, I always thought it was stupid when people did that on TV and in the movies. I thought, at the time, 'People just don't make that noise.' See, now I know, that's the _point_. Only a crazy person would go around imitating buzzers and it's scary to have a crazy person SHOOTING GUNS!" Her voice had crescendoed toward the end but was easily drowned out by the report of the pistol as she fired at the floor between Nathan's legs.

Nathan tried to flinch away but was completely immobilized by his bindings. At least he didn't yell this time.

The girl had laughed again at his reaction and subsided with a sorrowful sigh; As though she were lamenting the loss of the momentary mirth.

Nathan sighed too, in unabashed relief, letting his chin drop to his chest. What was wrong with this girl?

"One of them?"

Nathan looked up. The girl had swung back to the mildly pleasant personality, it seemed.

"What?" He asked, bewildered.

"You said I was 'one of them'. What do you mean? Special?" She smiled but this time there was no laughter in her eyes. "I'm not special Mr. Senator. Nope. Eeeeeh! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! I'm not special but you are, aren't you? Hmm. So, maybe I am one of them. Huh? Maybe…maybe you got that one right."

The girl honestly seemed to be perplexed by the question she posed to herself.

"I'm one of them because I'm not special and you are. So, did you get that right? But you MEANT one of them, one of the special ones."

The girl had been walking away from him, addressing her questions to the blank and moldy wall as though the water stains were an answer she could translate. Then she suddenly turned and strode angrily back to him, slapping him hard across the face.

"YOU'RE ONE OF THEM, NATHAN!!!" She screamed.

Then she started rubbing at the red spot her slap had created and whispered concernedly, "I don't think you're quite right in head."

"What do you WANT!?!" Nathan yelled in frustration.

Once again the dark mask of rage reappeared.

"What do I want?" She said quietly. "I want you to pay."

"For what?" Nathan screamed. "What did I do to you? If you're not one of them, then who are you?"

Tears sprang to the girls large green eyes and it suddenly, absurdly occurred to Nathan that she was really quite pretty.

"You took something from me, Nathan." She said, her voice breaking slightly as she cried. "I want it back. But you can't give it to me, can you? No. No one will ever give it back."

She was crying in earnest and then suddenly stamped her foot and started angrily wiping away the tears with the back of the fist that gripped the pistol.

"You had no right!" She screamed at him.

Nathan was truly afraid.

"Look, I'm sorry. Whatever it is that I took, I'm sure there's a way to get it back. Just tell me what I took and I'll get it back for you."

She smiled sadly and whispered. "You took my soul, Nathan Petrelli. You took my brother away from me and then you killed him…and you don't even know my name."

Nathan felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach.

"Your goons your Gestapo came into our home, OUR HOME. They shot him and dragged him away. I screamed and screamed and then they shot me with those, those things. I looked for him and you know where I found him? In the middle of field!"

The girl was pacing back and forth, talking in hiccups over ghastly silent sobs.

"You dressed him up till he wasn't even a person! You drugged him up and you chained him up and then you let him fall out of the sky and you don't even know his name."

"What do I want, Nathan? What do I want? I want justice. I want you to be dead. I want to kill you!" She screamed walking purposefully forward with the gun but just as quickly she seemed to change her mind.

"No", she said more calmly, "I don't want to kill you. What I want is for you to feel what I feel. I want you to know what it's like to lose someone you care about! I want you to know what it feels like to have part of your soul ripped out of your body! To know that no matter what you do or where you go, nothing will fill that hole. That would be justice."

Suddenly she dropped to the floor. Sitting cross legged like the child she was and holding the gun in her small hands like a toy.

A long silence stretched out between them and Nathan could feel it, as though it were a rubber band, stretching, and stretching and threatening to snap.

"I was going to kill your brother."

Nathan had expected a scream but the whisper was worse. He focused on the words. She said, "I was going to kill your brother." So, that meant she hadn't. But why hadn't she? Was he already dead when she got to him? Maybe he was too powerful. Or maybe he was dead. Nathan had to know.

"Why didn't you?" He said at last.

The girl still didn't look at him.

"Because of you. You, you're not like a real person. You put him in those clothes. You put him on that plane. You don't know what a brother is. If I killed him, you wouldn't feel a thing. You're a monster."

Nathan felt the words like a physical blow.

"I'm…I'm not a monster. I didn't know the plane would crash, how could I? I never intended anyone to get hurt."

"What's his name?" She screamed then, jumping to her feet and pressing the muzzle of the pistol painfully against his forehead. "What's my brother's name you self righteous, rationalizing son of a BITCH!"

"Well, you got that part right." A voice said almost jovially from the direction of the front door. "Our Mom isn't just a bitch, she's THE bitch."

Nathan gasped as he recognized the voice as Peter's. He almost believed he could feel the relief flow through him like a physical liquid washing away his fierce anxiety.

Then the girl whose name he still did not know moved slightly, the gun now pressed to Nathan's temple and Nathan clearly saw Peter's face. He saw the grimness in his eyes and manner and suddenly felt a shiver of cold dread.

It occurred to him that Peter might not be there to help him.

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To Be Continued...


	3. Chapter 3

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"From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean." -- William Shakespeare

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"Hi, Alice." Peter's voice sounded calm and cheerful, as if nothing was wrong. As if the girl, Alice apparently, weren't pressing the muzzle of a pistol against Nathan's scalp.

"Stay back, Super Boy." Alice fairly growled. "You're fast but even you couldn't beat this bullet."

Peter chuckled. "Why do I get the idea that people will still be calling me boy when I'm fifty?"

Alice laughed but then quickly sobered.

"I don't want to hurt you, Peter." She said quietly.

"Then don't." Peter said in an equally quiet voice. "Let Nathan go."

"No!" Alice screamed and Nathan couldn't help but grunt from the extra force with which she pressed the gun to his head.

"He has to pay! He has to pay for what he did to my brother!"

Nathan's heart was already beating fiercely but seemed to catch a second wind when he realized he could actually hear the trigger easing back.

"Alice, WAIT!" Peter called desperately.

For reasons known only to her, the girl complied.

"Alice, listen to me. You want to punish Nathan but think about what you'd be doing. You'd be taking my brother away from me."

Fresh tears sprang to Alice's eyes but she snorted derisively.

"I'd be doing you a favor. He wanted to lock you away with all the others." She laughed unsteadily. "Can't shoot him in the heart." She giggled. "Have to shoot him in the head. There's not heart to hurt."

"Alice!" Peter cried.

And she turned her attention away from the gun and back to Peter.

"Alice, listen to me. I know you're hurting. I thought I had as much as killed my brother once and it…I can't describe to anyone how that felt."

Alice was crying again. Long exhalations of silent sobs.

"I couldn't save him. I couldn't ever HURT them. They just laughed at me. I screamed and punched and kicked and they just laughed and shot me with one of those things. I didn't do anything."

Nathan listened to the wretched noises, the hiccupping sobs with a sickening horror and shame.

"I'm sorry." He heard himself whisper.

"No!" Alice screamed. "No! You don't get to be sorry! You don't get to be sorry when you don't even know his NAME!"

"Daniel." Peter said loudly and Alice stopped cold.

Her finger relaxed appreciably on the trigger and the gun actually moved a fraction of an inch away from Nathan's scalp.

"I know his name, Alice because I was with him when he died." Peter said quickly. "He talked about you. He made me promise I would find you." Peter smiled. "No offense, Nathan, but I didn't actually know you were going to be here."

Alice's laugh was pitched high with hysteria and discordant.

"Alice, Daniel loved you. He wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want you to be a murderer." Peter started to edge closer to the shaking girl. "Would he?"

"I miss him." Alice wailed. "I miss him so much."

"Alice, put down the gun…please. Killing Nathan, it's not going to take that pain away." Peter held up a hand and gestured downward. "It's not going to make anything better."

Nathan looked up into the girls face and could actually feel the moment she made the decision; the moment he didn't matter anymore.

Alice smiled at Peter. It was a deeply calm smile; a smile of relief.

"You're right, Peter." She said. "I'm glad you were here."

Then she pulled the trigger.

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To Be Concluded...


	4. Chapter 4

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"From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean." -- William Shakespeare

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Nathan heard Peter's cry cut off by the sound of the gun shot. In that instant the world around him was tinged red and he watched Peter halt his futile advance. Watched him turn on his heel away from the carnage; his fists to his head in a pose of utter defeat. Nathan bound and blood stained, watched his brother walk dejectedly to the wall and slam his fist on the small table. He faintly heard the table's groan of protest through the lingering rininging in his ears as it collapsed into a heap of splintered debris.

Nathan suddenly gasped and realized he had been holding his breath. The air he breathed was permeated with strange scents. The smoking gunpowder, the copper of the blood with which he had been instantly drenched and another strange smell that reminded him of the time he had absentmindedly placed a container with a tin foil cover in the microwave. Nathan realized with horror that he was smelling burnt blood.

An acid mixture rushed up his esophagus, gagging him suddenly and he clamped his lips tightly shut and swallowed it back down. He tried to stop himself but felt a compulsion to look down at the body. The majority of the girls' features appeared the same. The same clear green eyes, the same quirky mouth but her forehead now bulged in a horribly exaggerated way. Nathan felt the nausea stir again and closed his mouth against the sensation and his eyes against the horror of those vacant green orbs.

When he opened his eyes again, Peter was staring at him. Nathan felt a fear unlike any of the terror he had experienced that night. Always, always, no matter what was happening, no matter what Nathan had said or done, Peter was his brother. Peter always forgave, he always…loved. Nathan saw in his brother's eyes an utter and complete loathing. For not the first time in his life, Nathan realized he had made a mistake, a horrible mistake.

But, for the first time, he looked at his brother and truly believed that he might never be forgiven. That nothing he ever did would redeem him in Peter's eyes.

He had to try…

"Peter" He began but his voice was barely a croak.

Peter turned away. "Don't, Nathan." He said in a weary sigh. "Just don't."

Nathan licked his lips, trying to loosen his vocal chords and then gagged at the taste of the girl's blood on them.

He saw Peter gesture abruptly and felt the ropes binding him break apart. Peter still would not look at him.

"Peter, I'm sorry. I…" Nathan shuddered. "I did what I thought was right."

Peter's gaze secured Nathan as no ropes ever could.

"And what made you think you _had _the right, Nathan?" Peter growled fiercely. "Your arrogance, Nathan, it's astronomical. You sit on your high horse playing god with other people's lives like just so many toy soldiers."

Peter strode forward and grabbed his older brother's head, mercilessly pointing him in the direction of the body on the floor.

"You see that, Nathan? That's the outcome! That's what happens when self righteous assholes like you try to do what _they_ think is right and don't deign to let anyone else weigh in with an opinion."

Nathan closed his eyes against the stinging tears.

"I'm sorry." He whispered. "I'm so sorry. You have to help me, Peter. You have to help me."

Peter laughed and Nathan jerked back inadvertently from the stinging menace of the sound.

"Why, Nathan? Explain that to me. Why do _I_ have to help _you_?"

Nathan stumbled for an answer but only one presented itself.

"Because you're my brother." He said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

Peter's gaze was so cold, Nathan could not face it. He closed his eyes, ashamed.

For somewhere on the other side of his closed lids Nathan heard Peter move away.

"Sorry isn't good enough, Nathan. Not this time." Nathan heard the grief in his brother's voice.

Nathan eyes flashed open in time to see Peter pick up a hand towel.

"Here." He said and flung it carelessly. "Try and get the blood off your hands. I have a feeling it's gonna take more than this."

Nathan grabbed the towel out of the air and stared at it dumbly.

"God help you, Nathan."

Nathan looked up at his little brother, who was by then standing in the open doorway. "I can't."

Peter looked at the body on the floor. "My brother is dead." He said with awful finality and then he walked away.

Nathan stared at the empty door way for a long while, then his gaze moved back to the still form on the floor. He remembered her tearful cry:

_"I don't want to kill you. What I want is for you to feel what I feel. I want you to know what it's like to lose someone you care about! I want you to know what it feels like to have part of your soul ripped out of your body! To know that no matter what you do or where you go, nothing will fill that hole. That would be justice."_

He felt his tears running clean tracks down his blood splattered cheeks.

Alice had gotten her measure of justice after all.

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**The End**


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